LEE WEBB: Dr. Godfrey, I've known you for
a few years and I've never seen you get angry before; but you got angry during your talk.
And with good reason. Why do you think the church has lost its appreciation for the Sabbath,
and honoring it? ROBERT GODFREY: Well, I think one of the temptations
of American evangelical Christianity, borne out of something fundamentally good (namely
our desire to see the church revived, our desire to see the church revived, our desire
to see the church involved in evangelism and missions) has gotten persuaded, in our time
particularly, that the way to advance evangelism is to pursue minimalist Christianity. You
know, what is the absolute least we need to know and believe and and require of people
to make them Christians. And I understand the motive behind that. In some ways, you
can say the motive is praiseworthy, but it's a fundamental betrayal of the Great Commission.
The Great Commission was not "figure out the minimum number of things you can say about
me and get people to believe those." The Great Commission was "command them to obey all things
I have commanded you." There's a maximalism to to the Great Commission, and I think part
of the church's abandonment of the Sabbath was to make life easier for evangelism. And
then, when you start to make things easier, suddenly everybody wants things easier. Now
that I'm by far the old man here, one of the most dismaying things that's happened in recent
decades is the abandonment of the second service on the Sabbath day by churches far and wide.
Can it really be good for Christians to go to church half the time? Can it really be
good to hear half the number of sermons that you used to hear? Now, I have heard sermons
where I'd thought to myself, "I wish I could hear half of that, but in principle, to think
that we are better off with less time in fellowship with the people of God, less time in prayer,
less time in study, less time in listening to the Word of God, just is so self-evidently
wrong that it makes me mad. So there. WEBB: As a follow-on to that, do you think
the evangelical world today would, would view Eric Liddell skeptically today for making
the decision not to run on the Sabbath in the Olympics? GODFREY: Oh sure. If Eric Liddell had
run, you know, he was the great Scottish runner in the Olympics; refused to run on the Sabbath
day. And I can just make the case: if Eric Liddell had only run on the Sabbath day and
gotten that gold medal, think what an influence he would have been. Think how many more people
would have listened to him. He'd have been a celebrity. There's nothing better in life
than to be a Christian celebrity! Well, actually there are better things in life. And, you
know, I think he's a model of Christian faithfulness. There are more important things
than most of the things we do on Sunday, and a testimony to that may even be subversive.
But it's part of the struggle to which we're called, for sure. WEBB: Dr. Mohler, Dr. VanDoodewaard, do
you care to add anything to that? ALBERT MOHLER: Well, I think it shows the
whole question of what's happened in Christian worship, the Lord's Day. It demonstrates how
acculturated we are, without massive intentionality, not to allow the culture to dominate because
I think if we actually took time to do an analysis of exactly why the Lord's Day's been
so redefined, it wouldn't begin with a theological -- I disagree with Bob only in that I really
don't think it began with much missiology. I began, it began with the NFL. But I mean,
all kinds of distractions, and the other thing I'll simply say quickly is we have -- we have
to watch the argument that what's good for my family is not to have them in church. You
know, the kids need to be involved in this, this is good for our family, we need family
time together. Well, Lord knows we need family time together. But family time together at
church should be the very best of family time. WEBB: We do have some questions from our
Ligonier students. Was there death before Adam and Eve fell? WILLIAM VANDOODEWAARD: I think, Scripturally,
if we look at the text of Scripture, and theologically, for us to posit animal death prior to the
fall raises difficulties. Certainly human death prior to the fall would be tremendously
problematic, but I think both of those. You look at the text. After the fall, God clothed
Adam and Eve in animal skins. I do think we see the whole sweep of the sacrificial system
picturing "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin," "the wages of sin
is death" -- those patterns throughout Scripture, and the very goodness of creation, linkage
of sin and death; I think for us to posit an animal death or human death prior to the
fall is just flat contrary to the Word, and leads us into significant theological problematics. WEBB: Did God create evil? GODFREY: No. MOHLER: Amen. WEBB: Dr. Mohler? Care to add anything there? Just the amen? MOHLER: You know, it honestly -- you
know, Lee, that's one of those questions where it's hard to know exactly where to jump in,
because where to end is going to be very difficult. But very crucial importance of theological
categories. First of all, the Bible says God's not the author of evil which means God says
He's not the author of evil. And over and over again in Scripture, in both negative
and positive assertions, the Scripture makes clear that God is not the author of evil.
The Scripture also makes very clear that God is sovereign over all. And so this is where
the very crucial theological category of "ordain" is very important. God not only permits, as
if He's some passive observer, the biblical metanarrative tells us that God willed to
triumph over evil in Christ in such a way that He ordained that evil should exist though
He is by no means the author of it. And so, this is a crucial category. Calvin, in one
of his theological treatises, says, "You should never say that God merely permits anything.
God ordains." Now Calvin, in a couple of his sermons, uses the word "permits," which he
said you should never use. But I understand why. It's because he doesn't mean -- he's
very clear in that context, he means "ordains." He does not mean that God's a passive observer
in which he merely permits this to take place. The gospel is not plan B because God's plan
A didn't work. It instead is the ultimate, eternal display of His glory, in such a way
that He ordains everything, the beginning, the middle, and to the end in His sovereign,
eternal omnipotence. So God is not the author of evil. But evil exists primarily in order that God's
glory may be demonstrated in His ultimate victory over it in Christ. WEBB: So we're able to superimpose, in
the passage that says, "I the Lord create prosperity and disaster." That squares OK
with the that notion of God's ordination? MOHLER: I'm on the record as OK with
every word of the inerrant, infallible Scripture. WEBB: Got you. MOHLER: And in that Word there is no
contradiction. And I, you know, this is where, I appreciate you bringing it up because this
is where we just need to look at each other and say, "This is no fear here. There's no
problem here." That is a passage clearly speaking of God's judgment in bringing wrath upon sin
and, yes, He's very clear that He does exactly that. And part of that, by the way, is solved
by context. The other is by simple language. That is a -- that's something where sometimes
something like the King James can come back and imply something we really need to look
at linguistically just so we don't take that out of context. GODFREY: The reason I wanted to say
so emphatically that God does not create evil is that we want always to proceed fr om the
foundation that says God is good. He is only good. He is thoroughly good. There is no evil
in God. He created a creation that was good, that was very good, because it reflected who
He was. And to say that God would create evil, underlining that word "create," would be to
imply something entirely different about God, would create a different God. And that would
be entirely unbiblical. But what you're saying is, to the extent a humble historian can follow
it, sounds exactly right. I'm -- historians are never really humble. They just say that. WEBB: "Are unbelievers in Sheol until the
great white throne judgment, at which time they will go to hell, or are they in hell
now?" VANDOODEWAARD: I think, again, if
we look at the framework of Scripture, that we would say that they are in hell now, but
that yet there is the final judgment to come. They're certainly not in a state of soul sleep,
not in a state of limbo, not in purgatory, which of course, if they were going to hell,
they wouldn't be in purgatory, even in a Roman Catholic system. But, no, they're there, I
think, reserved for judgment, as we see in the case description of some of the fallen
angels, under judgment until the final judgment. WEBB: "Will those in hell be aware of God's
presence there, or His absence?" MOHLER: You looked straight at me.
I want to affirm what was just said. I think there is a sense, in the tenses of verbs related
to hell, in which hell is clearly not yet as hellish as it will be. And that even as
believers in Christ who die are not yet certainly in the new heavens and the new earth, they
are nonetheless truly with Christ. Right now. And those who die without Christ are truly
in a hellish state right now. And I would look to Luke chapter 16, in terms of Lazarus
and the rich man, in understanding that we are to take Christ at His word there; that
the rich man was, right then, experiencing the torments of Hades from which he cried
out. I want to affirm every single thing that is revealed in Scripture about heaven and
hell and everything in between, but we really have to watch not speaking where Scripture
doesn't speak. And so, the consciousness of those who are in hell very clearly is the
consciousness of those who know they are experiencing the pouring out of the wrath of God. So, to
that extent, they are fully aware of the presence of God. But I don't know how to factor that
in, because God's absence from hell is also dramatic. So I can't enter into a psychological
analysis of the state of those in hell other than to know they are going to know
they are eternally receiving the just penalty for their sin in the outpoureth, outpouring
of the wrath of God. And this is where we need to be fully biblical and make sure that
we're not gaining our theology of hell from Dante, or from some other source. Dante knows
more about hell than the apostles did, and that's a major problem. VANDOODEWAARD: Well, just thinking
further on that, the resurrection of course also plays into our doctrine of hell. There's
a resurrection of the just and of the unjust. And so that resurrected reality of those who
are apart from, and continue in rebellion against God, does signify a reality -- body
and soul -- which is certainly an even more fearful reality of complete judgment. WEBB: "How should Christians respond to
the imprecatory psalms; those psalms that talk about bringing God's judgment down on
people?" GODFREY: They should sing them! MOHLER: New line from Hallmark. WEBB: Would you care to sing a verse or
two? GODFREY: I would love to, but it would
empty the hall in about 30 seconds and so I'll spare you that. It seems to me there's
a lot of confusion on this in part because Jesus has told us to love our enemies, to
pray for them, and what what we're being reminded there is we are not to call down imprecations
on people for personal reasons out of individual spite. We need to be careful about that. We
need to be very, very conscious of trying, that part of what we're called to be as the
light of the world is people who love our enemies and but, you know, Paul talks about
how loving your enemies will further increase their punishment, setting love of enemy radically
over against judgment is not biblical. And so, to use the, the imprecations of the psalter
to pray for judgment on God's enemies I think is not illegitimate. Every time we pray, "Come
quickly Lord Jesus," we're praying an imprecation on God's enemies. When Jesus comes again there'll
be judgment for God's enemies. And so we have to be careful with them, we have to be sensitive
with them. But it is legitimate to pray for the return of Christ and therefore to pray
for final judgment. Now I think, when you read the psalter carefully, what you find
is, not in every psalm, but in every section of the psalter, there is first a recall to
the ungodly to repent and, only then, prayers for judgment on the ungodly. Our longing for
Christ's return and final judgment is always preceded by our longing for the elect to be
gathered, for the wicked to be converted. So it seems to me there's no absolute tension
there. And so, in light of the great glory of the final judgment to come, I think we
can sing the imprecatory psalms. MOHLER: I agree with that emphatically
and like the way Bob explained it. You know, when I speak of this -- I have students ask
about this, you know, because it's very tempting to pray imprecatory prayers and to think imprecatory
thoughts or, as I suggested, to send imprecatory greeting cards. We all know people to whom
we would be tempting to send one. But, if we believe in the full authority, truthfulness,
trustworthiness of Scripture, then God, in His sovereignty, not only inspired the psalmist
to express this, but for us. For us. We need to read this. We need to read them in worship.
We need to read them in our daily Bible study. We need to receive it. But when Jesus
was asked by His disciples, "Lord, teach us to pray," He didn't teach His disciples to
pray like that. But Bob said something else I want to come back to. When you pray, "Thy
kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," that includes everything
uttered in the Psalms and anywhere else in Scripture. And there is a judgment coming.
And I just, I just think we follow the example how Christ told us to pray and we know that
everything we need to say is in those words. VANDOODEWAARD: I think as well, you
know, there are times just when we realize as believers, as we're pilgrims in this world,
that our hearts just cry out for that. You know, we're driving down the freeway through
Georgia into Florida, and just the billboards along the way and, you know, four young children
in the car. And your heart just cries out, "Lord Jesus, come quickly! How defacing, how
distorting this is to Your good creation. How this destroys all that is good and holy."
And so there's a longing there. "Your kingdom come." At the same time, praying, as we do,
as our family, for dictators, "Oh Lord, please convert this man but, if he's not going to
repent, please remove him." MOHLER: I thought at first, driving
through Georgia, you were having imprecatory prayers about fellow drivers. VANDOODEWAARD: It wasn't that bad
till we got to Florida. WEBB: We Calvinists do have fun though,
don't we? "How did the Holy Spirit indwell and regenerate Old Testament saints? Any differences
in the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament versus the New?" GODFREY: He regenerated people in the
Old Testament just the same as in the New. MOHLER: As the writer of the book of
Hebrews ends chapter 11, it was meant by God that they not be saved apart from us, any
other way than we are. Abraham believed and it was accounted unto him as righteousness.
How did Abraham believe? Is it because he had some kind of inherent righteousness? No.
We have to believe the Holy Spirit in regeneration is the sole explanation for why Abraham believed
and it was accounted unto him for righteousness. And I do believe that that that the writer
of the book of Hebrews is inspired by the Holy Spirit to make that point, made elsewhere
in Scripture but just emphatically, just to keep in mind there is one salvation. It works
one way. GODFREY: But there'll be a lecture
tomorrow night on the ascension that touches on the presence of the Spirit in the new covenant.
You might want to attend. WEBB: Dr. Godfrey, "Do we need a new approach
in the way we defend the doctrine of creation?" Do we need a new approach in the church? GODFREY: Well, as I tried to to say
in my lecture, we certainly need to defend the doctrine of creation where it's under
attack. And we need to do that vigorously and unashamedly. But, as I also tried to say
in the lecture, we mustn't allow the controversy to determine all that we say about creation.
And the teaching of the Scripture on creation is so full, so positive, so joyous, such a
blessing, that we want to be sure that we're not just talking about controversial issues,
but we're talking about the full range of what the the Scripture reveals. And so it
is important to talk about days, and dust, and ribs, and these things today because they
are under attack, but we don't want to limit ourselves to just talking about those things.
And as I tried to say in my lecture, and I really think this important, is we not only
need to address controversy to answer error and to reassure ourselves of truth, but we
want to present the full doctrine of creation because I think it really will be attractive
as unbelievers understand it, to understand they live in a personal world and a purposeful
world. It's a terrible thing for them to be left with all the meaninglessness they're
left with and I, you know, I think we have to lay that out. As you were talking, Al,
I thought about the French Revolution, and one of the things the French revolutionaries
did was to get rid of the seven-day week because this was irrational and it was Christian,
so let's get rid of that and let's have a rational week of 10 days. Well, it was an
interesting idea, but it didn't work. You know, actually, it would appear perhaps God
knew what He was doing in creating the week as well as other things. And one hopes that,
that some of the idiocy of our day will collapse of its own weight, just as that French revolutionary
approach to the week did. But we would not want to spend all our time just attacking
the 10-day week. We want to rejoice in the revelation of a seven-day week, and what God
intended for it to be for us. MOHLER: Amen. B.B. Warfield, in his
little book "The Plan of Salvation," makes an astounding statement, it's absolutely true,
and that is that everything revealed in Scripture is comprehended in the doctrine of creation.
It's all actually there, in the sense that the purpose for which the world was created
was to display the glory of God and the drama of redemption. So you actually can't talk
about the -- it's kind of like trying to completely severe the discussion between the person and
the work of Christ. You can't -- you can't make -- that's a logical distinction, a distinction
of systematic theology, but it's not a distinction when you tell someone about Christ. It's not
a distinction when you, when you speak of the gospel. And so, when we understand that
all of creation, the doctrine of creation, everything revealed in Scripture, is to be
embraced not only as true, but as the only ground of our assurance that we are actually
creatures and not accidents. And I mean, for instance, the secular attempts to ground human
rights don't work. Clearly. In and unless every single human being at every point of
development and under condition is made in God's image, then human rights are always
up for negotiation. The other thing I want to point out is that, in this cultural moment,
we're facing a unique opportunity. This is where I spent so much of my time an effort
as a theologian. This is where I'm, in a lot of ways, most invested. And, it's because
of this: the illusion of middle ground in this is disappearing fast. It's never existed,
but even many evangelicals have tried to act as if some kind of middle ground did exist.
It's called "concordism" between science -- I don't mean rational science, modern, empirical
science that would be based on the Christian worldview, but the modern, naturalistic, materialistic
worldview demonstrated in its intellectual apparatus of science -- and Christianity.
So I was called just a few days ago who said, you know, "What is the basic conflict science
and religion?" I said, "Nothing." "What's the basic conflict between Darwin and religion?"
I said, "Absolutely nothing. Most religious systems are entirely compatible with Darwinism."
And he said, "Well then, what's the issue?" I said, "Darwinism is absolutely incompatible
with biblical Christianity," thus with reality, by the way, but with biblical Christianity.
And and so there are all these people out there and they've been saying for so long
that we can, we we can find a middle ground. Those of us who've been saying the middle
ground doesn't exist, the world's coming our way and it's coming from the other side now
far more heated and urgent than from our own. This is a -- this is an unusual opportunity
to be really clear about creation at the same time that the world, on the other side, is
simply saying, "Look, there's only one argument against us. There's only one argument against
Darwinism. There's only one alternative worldview, and that's biblical Christianity," in which
we say, "Amen." VANDOODEWAARD: I think as well, in
the -- just as we look at the whole situation, you know, we're in increasingly a neo-pagan
society. Christendom in the West really is done as a cultural phenomenon, I think, barring
God's gracious revival and change. But with that, we should have a missionary mindset
and remember we are God's creatures. We live in the midst of His creation, and it declares
His glory profoundly, in great diversity, in great complexity, intricacy, all around
us. And creation is our ally as we witness the gospel of Jesus Christ to those around
us. Recently, at MIT, the Whitehead Institute, they've been doing some research there -- a
woman involved in emergency medicine -- and they've been looking at the human body, cellular
structure. And the study just came out in the past year noting that we need to become
much more aware in the medical world of the fact that every cell in a man's body is male,
and every cell in a woman's body is female, and the differences between men and women
extend to all parts of our bodies. It's not just some parts of our bodies. Now they were
trying to sort of jiggle this a bit because they wanted to maintain the sort of transgender
ability at the same time, but became very clear they were in internal conflict. And
again, those sorts of issues, we can bring the refreshing truth of God's Word that will
liberate people who are under the bondage of sin, struggling, confused, in darkness,
into the joy of what God has intended, the goodness, the beauty of His creation, in Christ.
Through Christ alone. WEBB: Dr. Mohler, I think you could sense
that we all appreciate your podcast "The Briefing." Would you give us an idea how you prepare
for that each day? It's like drinking water out of a fire hose for us as listeners. How
do you prepare for that? MOHLER: I guess I'm omnivorous
when it comes to trying to understand, day by day, what's going on. I'm a creature of
print. I was a newspaper editor at one time. I'm still a creature of print. I have at least
four to five different daily newspapers in print I look at. By the way, there's a lot
of meaning embedded in that you never get online. As a former editor, I'll simply tell
you if a story's above the fold, beneath the fold, whatever, it tells you a very great
deal about the actual content that you'll never get online. So I, I still do that. Get
black fingers reading print newspapers. Parents, teach your children how to read a newspaper.
You -- GODFREY: You don't have a butler
to iron the newspaper for you before you? MOHLER: You know, that is so tempting.
That is so tempting. Yes. But behold, I lost Jeeves. And then, but the Internet is still,
I mean, and for one thing, in terms of the the newspaper, if you read the New York Times,
and you get it in Orlando, it was published about 1 A.M., things have happened since then,
so there's a lot to look at in that. And I have people who send me interesting things.
Most of what I talk about I find myself because that's how I find it interesting. And I just
-- and, by the way, the print, if you look at what I'm work working with when I do The
Briefing, I have got writing all over newspaper, in terms of where I'm circling. You know,
underlining words and that kind of thing. And then I just get in front of the microphone
and talk. Because I've got to do it. There's no script. If I had to write a script it would
never happen. So instead I just walk in with a bunch of articles and talk about them, and
then run out of time. WEBB: You do not use a script? MOHLER: Pardon me? WEBB: There is no script? MOHLER: There has never been. There
couldn't. A transcript is prepared afterwards, which is why it's posted later in the day,
because they take what I've said and turn it into a script. But if it were a script
from which I was reading, it would never be done because there's not enough time to do
that. And it would also not be as timely as I need it to be. I need -- I need to be able
to take something that arrived five minutes ago and be able to walk in and talk about
it. Thank you for listening, by the way. Helps me to know that there are folks out there.
Thank you. WEBB: I
sensed from from your message this morning
that, implicitly, you feel like maybe the church has given up and I was wondering, since
the July Supreme Court decision which basically legalized same-sex marriage, do you feel like
the church has thrown up its hands and said, "We can no longer make a case"? MOHLER: No, I I really don't, I really
don't sense that in the believing church. I think there is an awareness that we're going
to have to be ready now -- and, again, very Augustinian, I hope and pray. We're going
to have to be ready for a very long faithfulness, a very long obedience that's going to be very
costly, and is also an incredible opportunity to point to the city of God, to point to the
gospel while everything is falling apart around us. I think it also points to a couple of
other urgencies. There are, at the political, legal, court level, the religious liberty
challenges are going to be massive and I think that there's that daunting reality. But the
other daunting reality that's even more horrifying to us is that you don't have to have the studies
but you can find plenty of them: we are losing our own young people on these larger questions.
And I would argue it's not because they don't know what we believe; it's because they don't
know why we believe what we believe and they're not deeply grounded in a total commitment
to a biblical worldview that comes out of a living relationship with Jesus Christ. You
know, in any generation this can happen in various ways, whether it's the confessing
church in Germany or you look at Christians in the Soviet Union. What kind of conviction
does it take to withstand a full cultural onslaught? I interviewed a wonderful professor
who's on our faculty, and he's a -- it's Dr. Tom Schreiner, New Testament professor, just
such a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful man, and we had gone through all of the discussion
about all the confessional issues, all the major issues you'd want to know. It had been
days and days of conversation and then one of my trustees, who knew this was an arcane
question, asked an -- and, just because he was curious, he asked this professor a question.
Nothing to do with hiring him, just it's a question kind of like what we were just talking
about with some of the things that just, you know, Christians can, wonderful, believing
Christians can have long discussions about this. So he told us what he thought, and the
trustee, who has a quizzical look on his face, said, "So that's what you think?" And Professor
Schreiner wondrously just looked at him and said, "Well, I'm not sure how long I'd hold
it under persecution but, yeah, that's what I think." And so there are all kinds of things
you could say, well, you know, I think, and, that's what I think! But we really know what
we believe, or what we would hold under persecution. And I've thought of that statement so many
times. And if we are not grounding the church in the total truth of all that God has revealed
in such a way that church can hold those truths under persecution, then we're not teaching,
we're not preaching. And I think that is the greatest urgency. I'm not -- I'm not mostly
concerned about the church surrendering to the larger culture in terms of political,
cultural, other fronts. I'm more concerned that the church will abdicate its responsibility
inside the church. And that would be at far greater cost and of far greater unfaithfulness. VANDOODEWAARD: I think as while as we
step forward just realizing we're the church in exile, and thinking of Daniel's day. You
know, the means of grace. Daniel being in prayer. You need to cultivate those first
things in our lives, our families, our churches. And the Lord is faithful. As we cry out to
Him, as we look to Him, He does hear and answer the prayers of His people, for our children,
our grandchildren, and He preserves His church. GODFREY: I think we -- I agree very much
with all of this. I think we need a two-pronged attack. We need a sophisticated response so
that our young people, amongst others, can know we're not just blind, we're not disengaged
from what's going on in the world around us, we're not just anti-intellectual, we're not
stupid. We can come up with a sophisticated response. But we also want to come up with
a kind of simple response, and one of my historical heroes (and since he's Dutch, I have to mention
him in these -- this context, in that regard) is Abraham Kuyper. Abraham Kuyper was able
to give very sophisticated responses to a number of the pressing issues of his day.
But he also, in relation to creation, I thought, said something so wonderfully clarifying and
simple. He was a great opponent of evolution, already, in the 19th century, and he said,
"Christians have to oppose evolution because evolution teaches that the world in which
we live is normal. But the Bible teaches the world in which we live is abnormal." And I've
come back to that again and again. It is so helpful. It is so illuminating. Death, evolution
says, is normal. Christianity says it's abnormal. Sin, evil, evolution has to say it's normal.
We say it's abnormal. It's such a simple way, and I think, such a helpful way.
I think most people deep in their souls know, "I don't really want to have to think this
world is normal. I want to think this world is abnormal. I want to think things could
be better." And that's important I think. MOHLER: Absolutely, and I just want
to say one further thing, and that is this: it's not going to work. I mean, we know that.
The whole promise of so-called same-sex marriage is not going to work. It's already not working.
Anthony Kennedy, in his majority decision for Obergefell said one of the reasons why
we have to do this is because same-sex couples are being considered outside the moral norm
where marriage will resolve that. It doesn't resolve that. We're already looking at a market
in same-sex divorces. It can't deliver on its promises. Only Christ delivers on His
promises. And we've got to be there for people who, in the midst of this cultural revolution,
are going to be horribly hurt because this revolution can't deliver on its promises.
We've got to be there with the gospel of Christ. WEBB: It's a great way to conclude our
time together, and would you join me in thanking our panelists this morning.
